Edit: Put this topic in the wrong location. Meant to put it in Off Topic, not Ideas & Suggestions. My bad.
This really should be aimed at the Pure Data forum but I haven’t made an account on there yet so I’m just gonna aim it here for now…
I bought Andy Farnell’s book Designing Sound with the intention of using it to learn Pure Data for sound design and generative music purposes, and was wondering if anyone has any experience with the book and using Pure Data for these two things?
I’ve tried PD before but only ever managed to make useless sounds on it that any subtractive synth could make and a couple of crappy noise snares, but my knowledge of the program at the time was pretty much entry level. I’ve searched online and looked at videos but never seen anything that crazy in terms of sound design coming from Pure Data. But I know artists like Autechre, & Richard Devine have used it. So I’m curious as to just how applicable it is in terms of sound creation and generative music. How good is it for creating generative music i.e complex poly & euclidean rhythms and melody, is it good for making crazy dsp mangling effects with it, or is it all just a bit overhyped?
Also I’m aware that Autechre and Devine use Max/MSP more so than PD, but I’m not forking out money for that straight away when I can practice on PD for free.
Just as a reference here’s a few examples of the type of music I’m aiming at creating:
And if anyone knows good books on sound design and generative music I’d appreciate suggestions. I’ll need something new to read after I finish Designing Sound. Cheers.
I don’t use anything but Renoise currently so I wouldn’t worry about integrating it with a DAW at all, purely stand-alone. I’m planning on making sounds and generative composition within PD and then exporting them out as stems to mangle further with glitch & granular plugins, although I suppose if I get good enough I could create these type of mangling and granular system inside Pure Data. I particularly like the idea of generative rhythms because after spending the last 3 years with Renoise basically typing out the patterns manually I’m a little tired of it and want to do something new that will give faster results and some unexpected ones to.
I actually have Reaktor I got it a while ago but I never got round to learning it, crazy work schedule and all that didn’t allow me time, but I have some free time now and I figured I’d learn Pure Data first as it’d be a good overall learning experience to start with. I figure if I can learn PD, then Reaktor afterwards would be a piece of cake, and Max/MSP as well. Also I bought that book so it’d be a waste not to try it out…
The only thing is I kind of suck at math so I dunno how I’m gonna fair out with creating complex patches like the one in that first video above, practice, practice!!!
I use it more so with my eurorack… sorry bud. I think you might want to look into eurorack and that area because those guys are using it with that medium… it enables you to use patches in the modules and use it as a created synth… they use Qubit’s Nebulae.
I’m huge into this kinda music lol so i know a bit about what your going for here and although renoise is full of potential to use with this kinda music youll wanna explore that world too!
The problem with reaktor is how beginn
Helpful: (not from me, i read about it and find a start)
First read and use only Reaktor Blocks (there are few Barriers, its easy and fun)
But somehow i always come back to Renoise …
Unfinished Projects, Hardware confusing, Software Crashes, Quickly implanting a Idea, to lazy to practice an Instrument and so on
Yeah I’ve seen a lot of Richard Devine’s instagram videos with all his modular systems setups, and the stuff you can do is mental. But modular it’s just so pricey, and to be honest I’m not in the kind of position to set up a modular system cause I move around a lot for work and stuff so I can’t come home every evening to my house and play a modular setup. So that sucks Which leaves me working mostly on my laptop.
So would Reaktor be a better option than Pure Data for generative patterns and sound design? I mean I’m gonna learn the two anyway but would Reaktor give closer results to these kind of sounds than Pure Data or are they both viable?
Also I can’t seem to find any good info on how to design sounds like these. niNja_pWn3d seeing as how your into this kind of music to would you have any good sources for learning material? Or would you be able to give advice yourself?
I found a thread on IDM forums where Woulg (a friend of Vaetxh) talks about how to create sounds similar to the above examples.
He basically uses a recursive process in fruity loops using a granulizer and sample splicer to get crazy sounds. He’s since moved on to Ableton and is doing granular stuff in there. I’ve had some success with New Sonic Arts Granite, where I jammed in some beats and randomised all the settings then chopped, re-arranged, and extremely compressed the result to force the signal up to a constant level, but I’m still off. The results are great for percussive sounds, but I’m at a lose for when it comes to the other types of sounds. Like the bass sounds in List of List, those metallic slippy tones. What kind of synthesis are they made with, FM, wavetable?
I agree as well that Renoise has tons of potential, I find sequencing in it to be super easy but definitely for this style of music it feels limiting. Both sound design wise, and compositionally.
acreil is a pure data mastermind and yes pure data is very capable of handling these kind of compostions
The key to this all is like you said , algoritmic generators
When I make this kind of stuff I rely on my nord modular G1 , reaktor and renoise
I recommemd getting a used Nord modular and just sequence it from renoise , Maybe command is your friend =)
I used pure data /max msp in the past but be prepared for aa verry steep learning curve , altough the max lamguage is not that difficult
This guy is also pretty good ( more laidback house stuff )
That Acreil stuff is amazing. The complexity of the patches in those video is a definite testament to the learning curve. It’ll be a great benefit though to stick with it and master the program if I can, I’ll come away with new knowledge and be a better producer.
I’ve been using the maybe command mostly on drum patterns in the phrase editor to random select overlapped samples in different position within the beats I make. It’s the closest I could get to making generative beats in Renoise, but it’s not really truely generative. I’ve heard mention of a thing called a Markov Chain but having got to study it yet, seemingly it’s ideal for generative music so I’m going look into that. Hoping all this stuff is in the book I bought.
Yeah I’ve seen a lot of Richard Devine’s instagram videos with all his modular systems setups, and the stuff you can do is mental. But modular it’s just so pricey, and to be honest I’m not in the kind of position to set up a modular system cause I move around a lot for work and stuff so I can’t come home every evening to my house and play a modular setup. So that sucks Which leaves me working mostly on my laptop.
So would Reaktor be a better option than Pure Data for generative patterns and sound design? I mean I’m gonna learn the two anyway but would Reaktor give closer results to these kind of sounds than Pure Data or are they both viable?
Also I can’t seem to find any good info on how to design sounds like these. niNja_pWn3d seeing as how your into this kind of music to would you have any good sources for learning material? Or would you be able to give advice yourself?
I found a thread on IDM forums where Woulg (a friend of Vaetxh) talks about how to create sounds similar to the above examples.
He basically uses a recursive process in fruity loops using a granulizer and sample splicer to get crazy sounds. He’s since moved on to Ableton and is doing granular stuff in there. I’ve had some success with New Sonic Arts Granite, where I jammed in some beats and randomised all the settings then chopped, re-arranged, and extremely compressed the result to force the signal up to a constant level, but I’m still off. The results are great for percussive sounds, but I’m at a lose for when it comes to the other types of sounds. Like the bass sounds in List of List, those metallic slippy tones. What kind of synthesis are they made with, FM, wavetable?
I agree as well that Renoise has tons of potential, I find sequencing in it to be super easy but definitely for this style of music it feels limiting. Both sound design wise, and compositionally.
Just because I mentioned in an earlier reply here’s an example of the kind of sounds I got from that Granite plugin after I used it to mangle a drum beat. Bare in mind that the sounds in the example were all chopped from the result of the Granite mangled beat and re-arranged into this example, this isn’t just a straight output result of slapping a drum beat into Granite.
Don’t delve into pure data just for glitchy breakcore stuff , it will take a long time before you get any results , and that acreil stuff is indeed out of this world … he,s verry smart bloke ( you can find him on gearslutz for all thing dsp related , hard und soft …pref 80/90’s gear )
Then there is this program ( verry verry deep for algo stuff )
It used to be pretty expensive , but the developer got sick and now gives it away for free
I used to use a stand alone application called macpod for granular stuff but since I upgraded to my mac high sierra the software doesn’t work at 64bit so I wanted to get something new and Granite was cheap and simple. Got composers desktop, dont really use it all that much, it’s on the list of things to learn just the documentation was a bit lacking on how to use some features last time I was reading up on it. Don’t understand lua, never learned it. If you don’t like plugins, you don’t like them. I’m not gonna judge. It takes all sorts to make the world go round mate, I just grabbed Granite cause it looked like a fun little tool to play with is all. It’s not like it’s the only thing I rely on, I use all kinds of methods to make sound.
To be honest with you I view the whole ‘using plugins’ debate for creativity the same way I view the ‘using preset’ debate. Pointless. The end goal is creative output, how you get there whether it be the hard and difficult route or the short and simple route is redundant. A tool is a tool, there’s no more honor in spending 6 hours shaping a sound than there is doing it in 6 minutes. Both ways are fine so long as the result is what you want it to be. I’ve chosen to go down the difficult route of learning Pure Data, Reaktor, and eventually CDP and Max/MSP, but I’m still also gonna use simply little plugins and tools because ultimately their fast and fun for when you want a break from all the heavy stuff.
There’s no room for elitist attitudes in music creation, the heavy metal scene is rife with that kinda shit and that why I hated other metalheads even though I am one myself. Many of them were narrow minded about what was “the right kind of music” and to me that’s just fucking dumb. I was once playing a Jack Johnson song on the ukulele at a party and the only other metalhead at the party came in and was disgusted that I was playing this song that wasn’t metal. How terrible it was that I could enjoyed something beyond the scope of what he deemed “good music” or “real music” (whatever the fuck that means). So why should it be the same for electronic music, or music tools. Guitarist buy pre-configured effects pedals to alter the sound of their instrument in an instant without having to sit hunched over a computer for hours trying to create a long complex reaktor patch to mangle the sound of their guitar ala Squarepusher style, but nobody criticises them for being cheap and cheesy. So why should it be the any different for electronic music. It shouldn’t. It’s all just a means to an end. Anyways…
Which leaves me working mostly on my laptop.
Which leaves me working mostly on my laptop.
